Running Repair Agents Update

As a follow-up to our 06/15/22 industry update regarding what AllTranstek identified as excessive and unnecessary weld repairs made by Running Repair Agents to our customer’s freight cars, the AAR Arbitration Committee is reviewing the AAR Interchange Rules to perhaps address the issue.

Excessive and Unnecessary Welds on Freight Cars by Running Repair Agents

As a follow up to our 06/15/22 industry update regarding what AllTranstek identified as excessive and unnecessary weld repairs made by Running Repair Agents to our customer’s freight cars, the AAR Arbitration Committee is reviewing the AAR Interchange Rules to perhaps address the issue.
Some of our clients are seeing large increases in their monthly railroad repair bills, especially in welding on their cars. Through audits and investigations, we are witnessing the misuse of the AAR Rules by some of these RRA’s.  As a result, AllTranstek, along with other car owners, have asked the AAR to review Rule 82 of the AAR Field Manual for unnecessary welding.  The AAR will consider: Age of car, type of car, service (is it corrosive?), components (coupler carriers, other), inches of weld, dollar amounts per event, and/or car part codes.
The AAR will work with MxV Rail to analyze the weld data on all railcars.  Once we have more information from the AAR we will provide an update with the resolution to this ever-perplexing issue.

Stay tuned for more information.

Definitions:

Running Repair Agent (RRA) is defined in the AAR Office Manual and AAR Field Manual as follows:

A running repair contractor as listed in FindUs.Rail performing the work of running repairs on freight cars. The running repair agent must be a signatory to the AAR Interchange Rules. Running repair agent is synonymous with various references in the AAR Interchange Rules where “repairing road,” “repairing party,” “repairing line,” “billing company,” and “billing road” are so noted. (Reference Field and Office Manual Rules 85, 112.G.5, and 112.H.3.)

Running Repair:  Any repair performed to an interchange freight car by a railroad subscriber to the AAR Interchange Rules and within the limitations of Field Manual Rules 1 and 108.